Adopting and adapting foreign innovations in health service delivery: a case study in elderly care in Suzhou, China

It may take considerable time to adopt and adapt innovations in health service delivery, especially when there are discrepancies between values embedded in innovations and the contextual values. To facilitate the process, taking an incremental approach and establishing a long-term collaboration between experts involved in the countries of origin and implementation may be beneficial. This message may shed a light for other middle- and low-income countries to transfer innovations in service delivery from high-income countries.